secution if I whisper, that it was the very celebrated Sir K-v--f Q -m, who died, nobody knows how, in a duel about nobody knows what. Sir Walter Mandeville is the well-known German general Baron Shd-wglph; he wears a Kevenhuller hat, is gouty and asthmatical. It would be dangerous even to hint who was meant for Paulina, and every body knows Lady Mackintosh. The character of Selina puzzled me, till at last I discovered, that it was intended as a delicate tribute to friendship, being no other than my own. My beauty certainly is faded, and the world has not done justice to my merit. I fear I shall be satirized if I say any more on this subject.

I now commend this compendium of secret history to the world with all its imperfections, and I assure the public, that unless some people whom I will not name, make it worth my while

to be silent, I shall next time be less careful about personality. I remain the most devoted servant of the public,

ELEANOR SINGLETON.

INTRODUCTION

BY

MRS. PRUDENTIA.

A FRAGMENT.

There, at one passage oft you might survey,
A lie and truth contending for the way;
And long 'twas doubtful, both so closely pent,
Which first should issue through the narrow vent,
At last agreed, together out they fly

Inseparable now, the truth and lie.

POPE.

MR. STANZA, in his reply

to the doctor, admitted, that the arguments of his reverend opponent would be unanswerable, if history really possessed all the advantages to which it

pretends; "for certainly, my dear Sir," said he, "I am not such a Quixote in polemics as to dispute the self-evident truism, that truth is preferable to falsehood. I only maintain, that those elaborate quartos which affect to contain the lives of eminent men, or the fortunes of empires, have too much of fable, conjecture, and misrepresentation in them. to be justly characterized by so abstract and simple a term as truth. And I also assert, that we shall transgress the laws of candour if we denominate a well-digested fiction, which copies human actions and passions with force and correctness, by the gross appellation of falsehood. In perusing the pages of Fielding, Richardson, and Goldsmith, we always feel in the company of human beings; nay, sometimes among our own acquaintance. We anticipate their sentiments, we know

what they will do, and though occasionally events may be brought about more malapropos, or more adroitly, than we have been accustomed to see in real life, we rather suspect our knowledge of the world is too limited to supply an exact parallel of accidents, than doubt the author's veraci ty from the improbabilities in his story: I mean while the strong enchantment of genius fascinates our judgment, by introducing the aspect of reality. But, Sir, does this effect take place when we turn over the works of those historians and biographers who set human nature upon stilts, or degrade it to the standard of a pigmy, commanding us to adore absolute perfection, or to execrate the bestial compendium of all imaginable depravity? or of those, who, rather aiming to be ingenious than veracious, shew us that they care not what they establish, so